SEO issues with Physician and Practice not ranking for their own names
-
I've inherited an SEO client who's got all kinds of ranking problems. Currently his name Dr. Laddis shows up for his old practice, Saratoga Cardiology Associates (http://saratogacardiology.com/) instead of his current one Cardiology Specialty Services (http://cardiologyspecialtyservices.org/ ) He's also showing up with a G+ for the old practice that's listed as closed. The 2nd listing is for his bio on the hospital page.(<cite class="_Rm">https://saratogahospital.org/doctor/theodoros-laddis-md-facc/ )</cite> Then come the usual Dr directories. His YouTube channel shows up. But his actual website isn't until the middle of the 2nd page.
I'm also having similar issues getting the practice to show up in search (http://cardiologyspecialtyservices.org/ ). As I was coming on board, they also had a name change from Saratoga Cardiology Specialty Services to Cardiology Specialty Services. Their G+ local business page has the custom URL for Saratoga Cardiology Specialty Services but the name on the page is Cardiology Specialty Services.
Their website is actually part of the hospital multisite with a URL redirect.
While the site shows up for "cardiologist Saratoga" their G+ page doesn't show up.(https://plus.google.com/+Saratogacardiologyspecialtyservices/about ).
I've also done on-page SEO and am still in the process of submitting to directories.
Any thoughts on what the hangup is or what I can do to clear up this mess would be appreciated.
-
You're very welcome!
-
Thanks Miriam and Ilya for taking the time to respond!
Ilya, yes, the G+ business page is verified. Holding off on Laddis' page because the other drs in the practice have pages set up, but I'm not finding any for Laddis--so waiting to hear back if someone at the hospital has set that up already. I wish I could log into one dashboard.. They've had so many people working on this and leaving without creating a central database of work done or logins, etc., over the years that it's a jumbled mess.
Miriam, I've been working through Moz Local to add to directories, update current info and clean up duplicates. Thanks so much for the link to the article!
-
Hi There!
One thing that may be helpful to you is to put both business through our free Check Listing tool to start to discover duplicate, incomplete and inconsistent listings. Go to moz.com/local/search and enter both the current name and zip of the businesses and also try adding any old names and variants. You need to create a spreadsheet of every inconsistent citation that exists so that you can embark on a citation cleanup campaign, editing old references to reflect new data. Also recommend that you read this article by Joy Hawkins:
Hope this helps!
-
Hi Karen,
Have you claimed the Google My Local Business listing for_ Dr. Laddis _or Saratoga Cardiology Associates?
If you go to http://www.google.com/business/ you should be able to log in using client's details and see all Google+ pages associated with the business. You can edit those pages from there and update the listings.
If there are duplicate listings that are no longer required, you can delete them here as well.
Cheers, Ilya
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is SEO effect of NAP Inconsistency A Hoax?
Is the effect of NAP inconsistency on search rankings basically a myth to justify business citation management services? I've been doing SEO for over 10 years but only recently started doing local businesses. I have yet to find any sort of published study that clearly shows a significant ranking effect by correcting an inconsistent NAP on any business directory site other than Google and Bing Business Listings. In fact, the publishers of any such articles claiming NAP inconsistency has a significant negative SEO effect are almost always businesses or people that are charging for such services. Gee, could they be a little biased? Obviously if you have an incorrect address that is far from the actual address, correcting it will help your ranking (think 3-pack) in the area close to your business but that's not really the type of ranking effect I'm talking about here. I'm talking about a missing suite #, or an old address that is 1/2 block away from the new address but still the same phone number, or identical address but different phone (a toll free versus a local number). That kind of stuff. Of course you don't want to have an incorrect address or non-working phone number on places like Superpages, Yelp, Yellowpages, etc, but does anyone know of any place I can find good factual proof that having inconsistent NAPs on these sites has any significant effect on rankings? I'm sure some of the big SEO companies have the data to determine the effect. Or is this more of a "tin foil hat" / herd / OCD mentality on this subject that no one can prove (or disprove?)
Local Listings | | MrSem0 -
Evidence that high organic rankings impact positioning in the Google local pack?
I'm looking for articles/evidence that if you have a high ranking organic listing that it will improve your chances of being in the local pack. I came across this about a year ago, but I have had trouble finding articles to support this. Does anybody know of any recent articles and/or studies that show a correlation of high organic listings and local pack visibility? Thanks!
Local Listings | | BigChad20 -
Local Optimization for Multiple Businesses Issues/Strategy
Hello Everyone, So we have a client with a geo-focused ‘sports’ site but they also have a second site they are using to promote the seasonal camps they run. Local demographics and traffic would be a priority and main source of traffic. We know it would be ideal to have all of it consolidated but in this case a separate site was needed. The camp site would be under a different Name but they do not really have a different physical location from the primary site. Assuming we can’t find a discernable different location we could use; from a local optimization perspective we have two questions: Does that mean that we shouldn’t venture into local listings that need an address and trying to rank for map results and instead shift focus to other local strategies (i.e. geo-relevant content, link acquisition….etc.)? – We don’t want to dilute or devalue the primary site at all but if possible would like to be able to come up for both. Should we avoid listing the address on the camp site as text for similar reasons? We know the same business could be listed for multiple locations but any suggestions on the opposite approach or input would be very appreciated. Please let us know if there is anything we could provide details for that might help. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you in advance. Best,
Local Listings | | Ben-R0 -
Found a yelp review by unknowing client of webdesigner who made a one page site. bad seo
One page sites are fine and dandy, but if you are a local biz...Just no! Here's my story with a few questions. I did a search on google site:http://eatfullbellydeli.com/ and it resulted in four pages: Main; menu; hello world; category; uncategorized. I'm not a web designer...I do seo. 1.) How rude would it be for me to reach out to the designer to comment and give suggestions? 2.) or should I reach out to the owner. 3.) Or just close my eyes and say "i hate people that take advantage of others"
Local Listings | | Ohmichael0 -
Top Local Organic Rankings, But Nowhere to be found on Google Snack Pack
I've been working with a local gym for a while now. We successfully got the gym to beat out all its competitor and now it consistently ranks in the 3rd or 4th result for all major local industry keywords. For example "gym in [city]". The only thing above us is Yelp and other directory sites. The problem I am running into is we do well organically, but when it comes to Google Snack Pack we aren't in the top three or even 10. You have to go deep into the next pages of the map to find our business. I did find that we use to be categorized as health club in Google My Business, but I changed that three months ago. Some more additional info, the site when I got the account moved to a different url. So many directories and sites that linked to us in the past link to the old url. The old url is 301 redirected to our current url. I haven't found much info about this topic and am looking for any experience or insight?
Local Listings | | JasonKhoo0 -
SEO - Should individual doctors at facility claim a Google My Business profile?
My client is a physician facility with several doctors practicing at the facility. When doing a Google search for some of their practices such as "family practice" one of the doctor's profiles will display in the Google Local pack - however it is not linked to the facility website where their profile exists. As of right now, we are using YEXT and other tools to claim Google Business Profiles for each practice, not the individual doctors. If there are unclaimed accounts for individual doctors, they are alerting Google that it’s a duplicate and should be taken down. Is this the right process to follow for SEO best practices or should we be claiming both the business and individual doctor profiles? The reason they are not claiming individual doctor profiles is to cut down on duplicate reviews as part of the Reputation Management Program. Advice much appreciated!
Local Listings | | chrisvogel0 -
What To Do With Two Business Having The Same Name?
Hi friends, We have a client who is in a peculiar predicament... essentially his business and his biggest competitor share the same name. Officially on their business licenses they are differentiated by the year they were each established, but in all their marketing, on their website, and in the community they are both known by the exact same name. When the company name is searched for, the competitor shows up #1 organically with the map pin as well as in the knowledge graph, and our site shows up number 2 without any any map pin or Google+ page site link or anything. We thought we could differentiate ourselves by changing his Google+ page name to his official business name (with the date) and building a bunch of really good citations with that official business name, but we still haven't made a dent for his branded keyword, and our Google+ page site links aren't even showing up. Has anyone run into a situation like this and any suggestions?
Local Listings | | localtrifecta_im0 -
Will local optimization effect international ranking?
Lets say a company serves Canada and US customers regularly, but they are based in Canada. They currently have no local optimization or confirmation of their location on their website. If I were to begin local optimization (google my business, local content, link building, schema etc), would Google recognize this website as a Canadian business and remove rankings in the US that it is currently appearing in now without any locational information?
Local Listings | | aaronleven0